Helen Rainey Vance, who was wounded in 1989 by a bomb that killed her husband, U.S. Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance Sr., died today after an illness.

She was 76.

Vance had been at her Mountain Brook home Dec. 16, 1989 when she accepted delivery of a package that had a return address from another judge. She was at the kitchen table later when the package exploded as her husband opened it.

Vance testified at the federal and state trials of Walter Leroy Moody, the man convicted in the mail-bomb slayings of judge Vance and Savannah, Ga. lawyer Robert Robinson.

Moody, now 75, is on death row at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

Vance was the mother of Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Robert S. Vance Jr. and mother-in-law to Joyce White Vance, who is the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.